Catalystic
by Ivydoll
Summary: KuramaHiei, KuwabaraYukina, Yuusuke... Genkai. Watch as I juggle three plots in one trilogy. Features Upset!Keiko, Cool!Kazuma, Pretender!Botan, Angst!Hiei and SuperHot!Genkai.
1. First Catalyst

**(KAI)** So this was fun. Sort of the kind of project I've really been wanting to do. So far, two parts are done, and the third (and final) part is creeping toward completion. And OhForTheLoveOfGod, _alert me of typos!_ They drive me crazy!  
...Don't mind me. XP 

---

**CATALYSTIC**

---

The Story Of Hiei, And The Story Of Kurama;  
The Story Of Yukina And Of Kuwabara;  
The Story of Botan, Keiko, Shizuru-  
The Story Of Yuusuke...  
And The Story Of A Very, Very Confused Old Woman.

---

**FIRST CATALYST**

---

She woke up without much of the usual aching pain which accompanied her mornings; rather, she found herself feeling quite refreshed and totally energetic. Or, 'alive'. In fact, far more alive than she had felt in decades (or, in point of fact, _weeks_, given the past few moments of total aliveness she'd experienced during the course of Toguro's dark tournament). After these brief moments of contemplation, which took place while she sat up- a task in the space of maybe two seconds- it did not take very much longer to discover she was no longer quite as sallow, quite as un-smooth, quite as limp in the hair, or quite as aged at all.

In fact... she was fifteen years old.

---

Yukina and Kuwabara arrived to a meeting held by Genkai, that night, together, rather suspiciously, given that Yukina's presence had not been requested since her leave to the ice worlds. More suspicious was Kuwabara's redder-than-normal face, wider-than-normal grin, and closer-than-normal distance to the young girl. Yukina to this, seemed very calm, collected, and simple- very pretty and quiet- and not at all, in any way, different than normal, _save_ that her usual attire of a blue-hued and feminine flower kimonowas replaced gorgeously with a simple _white_ kimono, speckled with the palest of violet hydrangea petals; but this was not the most surprising event.

Kurama had arrived to the meeting first, and was drinking tea calmly as the other callers came. Although his hair was not as bright or clean-looking as usual, nor as luscious, and although his clothes looked as though they'd gone through multiple days' wear and his body through multiple days' sleeplessness, and although his green eyes watched and absorbed as usual, though _with _their usual sharp interest, a particular glimmer seemed missing- a missing glimmer which went unnoticed almost entirely, but in point of fact _was_ noticeable. However, Kurama's listless, reserved, and even _unapproachable_ demeanor was not the most surprising event.

Second to arrive had been Yuusuke and Keiko, between whom was a spackling aura of electric animosity. For that it was summer, Keiko wore a pleated skirt and blouse, which might have drawn attention to her skinned knees and elbows, but circumstances did not permit. Yuusuke's attire was no different than usual, nor was the scowl on his face, and in point of fact nothing was apparently any different from average, every-day Yuusuke versus Yuusuke-at-Genkai's-Emergency-Meeting (a very sad-looking penguin-esque soul-beast perched nervously atop his head), _except_, perhaps, for the dark, auric knives being shot resentfully at the girl with whom he'd come. They did not sit together at the table after their first reactions, rather, Keiko found a place near Genkai, and Yuusuke found a place near Kurama; Genkai and Kurama being at _opposite _ends of the long, silent table. But _this_ was not the most surprising event.

Third and fourth to arrive were Hiei and Botan, perhaps two minutes apart. Hiei seemed, of them all, the absolute _most_ every-day, if more curt and short-tempered. And Botan the rower, apparently having no real agenda in the spirit world where her occupation existed, arrived in- though it has little bearing on the unfolding plot, other than to service as a note of normalcy in her- a fluttering yellow summer dress (which did wonders for her legs but very little for her waist). There was nothing surprising here; given that in the circle or people which are being spoken of, it is perfectly normal to equip an oar as a vehicle. Hiei, still, seemed the most normal; arriving on foot, without terrible adieu, but with no small amount of dark agitation. He had sensed long before the call to this meeting had come to him that something wretchedly evil, unnatural, or simply _wrong _was afoot. But in no event was there anything surprising with _that._

Much like Kurama, he had taken his reaction swiftly, with snap-judgement and assimilation and little call for theatrics; he settled himself at the table (here, the slightest un-usuality, however slight) in such a way that perhaps he was a part of the group and perhaps he was not.

So last to arrive was Kuwabara, in his ecstatic face, and Yukina, in her pretty loveliness (however childlike and simple). The reaction to their joint arrival was perhaps more mixed than the general reaction upon arrival at the meeting, for different reasons, of course. Kuwabara ushered Yukina in proudly, handsomely, and settled beside her after his moment or so of shock and disbelief at discovering the 'event' which had called the meeting together, and Yukina, smiling thoughtfully at the change, folded herself primly at the table and proceeded to fill a cup of tea for Kuwabara, herself, and Kurama, who had laid his empty cup nearby, and who smiled a thanks at her domestic thoughtfulness. _A pretty wife she'd make_, he thought wryly, perhaps more aware of the new situation than anyone else in the room at that precise moment.

But the most surprising thing about that meeting was what had actually _called_ the meeting, that is, Genkai _herself._ Genkai herself was drinking tea at the head of the table- a deadpan expression in her clean, pretty face, set by contemplative but troubled brown eyes. Her light pink-toned hair was drawn back in a pony-tail, where it spilled with a bouncy life the detectives, demons, apparitions, humans, and reaper had seen only a few times, and had _not _expected to see again. And _this_ was the most surprising event of the day; the fresh-faced Genkai sipping tea over her thoughts with hands softer than they'd been in years, features lovelier than they'd been in years, and presence more attractive and intriguing than ever before.

But the questions which arose over this event were to wait for the time being, because one of the members of the group, unable to get his mind off of the one most incredible thing which had _been_ on his mind for days, weeks, now, was about to reveal news which was almost as, or perhaps more, surprising as Genkai's mysterious new appearance.

Unable to keep his glorious news to himself, and with little regard for Genkai's plight after his initial reaction, Kuwabara slugged down his tea, slammed the little cup down- and a credit to it for not breaking- and bellowed as though the force of the sea carried his words forth, frothing and masterful, "I'm going to _marry Yukina_!"

The reactions to Genkai had been mostly astonishment, disbelief, and confusion, and to this piece of news there was little difference. Yuusuke's expression of concentration on the oh-so-hot Genkai was broken by a wide, congratulatory grin, which reached into masculine hugging with Kuwabara and whoops of approval. Keiko's atmosphere of antagonism dissipated with the words, and a delighted look spread across her features. This was to last for a good hour or so, before her fury with Yuusuke returned with a force which would prove to be catalytic in the coming events. Botan swung into a full-on happy-Botan mode, changing her outward appearance as easily as though it were merely a stringed mask, as was her habit. Kurama smiled, sipped his tea, and let himself feel a warmth of sanction for the couple, which he could predict lasting comfortably for ages to come, just as easily as he had predicted the could-be future earlier.

There was a cold aura then; a dark, wretching, shrieking and violent aura which whipped through the room with little regard for who it could damage. It felt palpably to the skin, and was as a dragon may be, were it as intangible as spirit energy could be. Genkai was on her feet- petite and adorned in clean, white socks- quite instantly. Defensive spells rolled off her tongue with an ease her memory had threatened to take from her as the years marched on. Kurama whipped up as well, knocking the table and its teas over as his shin knocked up. In his haste to turn, he managed to catch a glimpse of Hiei's face- a sharp child's face- overwhelmed by an expression of the most perfect and pure rage and most total devastated grieving. It was a face which sent a shiver up the red-headed demon's spine; a shiver which left his heart freezing.

And then Hiei vanished- less vanished than ran so quickly away as to appear to vanish- and the wrathful, mourning aura left with him, leaving in its wake a selection of knocked over furnishings and odds-and-ends which had been in the room Genkai had chosen. Although nothing too terrible had been exacted, Kurama saw, turning around, Yukina, her demure impression shattered in tears. She knelt by the remains of the tea pot weeping piteously, somehow attempting to pick up the shattered pieces of ceramic while trying to scrub and squeeze the spreading brown tea stain out of her kimono as jewels formed and fell heavily from her cheeks.

"_Oh,_" she sobbed, Kuwabara leaning over her protectively while Botan rushed over to help, though it was too late- the young girl had cut her finger on a shard already. "Oh, _no..._"

Genkai and Yuusuke took the outsiding track, and stayed out of the way, neither of them suited to the situation, and Keiko, unable to help by being in the room, left- most probably to procure towels, and a trash bin. Kurama watched, teeth almost chattering from the remnants of Hiei still in the room, still screaming in fury and pain, and set his jaw determinedly. There was a feeling here, he saw, not only of disapproval. Yukina went on sobbing, finally collapsing against Kuwabara's chest, and cried out quietly, "Oh, brother, why are you...?"

An upstart in Botan, perhaps in fear of the wrath which she theorized might fall down from Hiei should he think Yukina's knowledge of his relationship to her have come from the reaper, herself- "Yukina! H-How did you know?"

The apparition shook her head miserably, "I just _knew_, Botan..." Her little voice carried quietly through the room, a testament to her pretty and clever innocence, "He... he felt right..." trailing off into weeping, and she was swept up by Kuwabara as though the lightest and most delicate of flowers, to be carried to a bathroom, where she might conceivably be helped. Botan shot a look of worriedness at Genkai, whose own expression had not changed, and began following after, low to the ground, to pick up the scattering jewels, that they might not fall into the wrong hands.

A whistle of empty air swept through the room, and Genkai grumbled to herself, under the breath, and irritably. Yuusuke, in passing her to the further reaches of the temple, rested a hand on her shoulder (managing this feat only by leaning slightly). "Genkai."

In the word, the name, the promise to help, by all possible means. Yuusuke's honest face smiled at the formerly old woman, now scarcely more than a little girl, and the heart of the little girl Genkai had once been warmed at her pupil gently. Then his hand was gone, and his self had left the room, and Genkai stared at Kurama openly for a moment. "You know there's trouble, don't you?"

He nodded; the tiniest incline, and the shortest of looks. Her voice was back to its soft, tinny way, and had lost the gruff coughing voice of a woman aging quickly, from stress and bargaining with death. "I sense the workings of things above us."

"And beside," Genkai replied quietly, turning her gaze to the spaces once occupied by Yuusuke and Keiko, "there are traces of them in here, along with Hiei's."

"Malice," murmured the fox spirit, crossing his arms and wandering the perimeter of the table's original location. "What do you think is happening?"

A derisive snort, "Children fighting and someone in the spirit world fucking with me."

Kurama almost did not snap his head in Genkai's direction, from a slight jolt of surprise. "I thought maybe I'd been poisoned," went on the pretty young girl who had replaced the haggard old woman, "and would die from the reversal of time. But if I was going to die, I would have by now."

She smirked at her joke and Kurama smiled back, coming to a stop where Kuwabara and Yukina had sat. "I like it," he said, moving a few pieces of Genkai's forgotten chinery into a little pile with the toe of his shoe, a silk slip-on, black and white. "I see good things for them," Genkai agreed, and then snorted derisively, "You know, I think my attempt to come to some conclusion by bringing you all here to 'brainstorm' backfired."

Kurama nodded, catching the barest and most quiet note of dejection and disappoinment in her voice, "I'm sorry." She nodded back at him, a small smile on her face, before looking away again at the carnage in her spoiled tea room, and they were silent as the only other event of their circle went un-contemplated.

Finally, as they met face to face across the disaster area. "He will kill tonight if no one stops him."

Kurama nodded, heart quickening at the thought of the person who had been his only friend in some pit of his own, as an animal trapped, where only death and misery and hatred grew. "It appears I will be going on a trip. Tonight." Genkai uncrossed her arms and spotted Kurama's eyes with an intensity he had seen only a few times in his life time, "Go after him; stop him if you can. If you can't, you know what will happen."

Kurama thought back the jails of the spirit world (where Hiei would end up were his contract violated), and to the monsters and demons, goblins and spirits, whish resided there, against their wills, and against each other. He nodded at Genkai, who had moved to the threshold of another room and was looking back at him, small hand resting on the frame, "And... if you can..." she said, walking away from him into the dark of that next room, "keep an eye on Yuusuke for me."

---

She found Botan in the bathroom, comforting a distraught Yukina, with an even more distraught Kuwabara. It was odd and tender to see him worked so gently up over it, his giant hands holding the crying girl's little hands, and muttering a peculiar mixture of curses and pretty helpful things. Botan sat beside the girl on the edge of the high-stood bath-tub, cooing and petting her shoulder. Genkai felt removed from the situation and could not help the different currents of emotion running through her, against her will. Slinging her bag from one shoulder to the next- a fluid motion that did not hurt her back as it might have the day before- and tried to ignore the helpless anger at the group. The anger that raged against them and at Yukina for drawing from her the attention she should have received for her plight. An engaged girl! bah! Who needed comforting? But she was able to ignore the angry voice, because she knew, _then_, that not only had the outside of her body been reversed, but the inside, as well- where the strong currents of changing hormones swam. Still, she coughed with an edge of agitation and called Botan from the group without mercy.

Out of the corner of her eye- the sink; full of gems.

"What is it, Genkai?" the wide-eyed young woman questioned, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. _What isn't it?_ Genkai sighed, let the thought pass, and gestured vaguely upward in exhaustion. "We're going to the spirit world. Now."

---

Botan tensed when she saw Genkai young-and-beautiful enter the room; a brief flash of jealousy, and a strange, un-place-able anger washed over her quickly and then was gone, but were it voice it may have sounded like, "Now there's even more competition." She had been acutely aware of how relieved she'd been when Yukina's engagement had been announced; it had been one less lovely, eligible girl in their group- Keiko had been less of a threat, what with Yuusuke's obvious attachment to her, and her obvious attachment to him, and Shizuru had never struck her as _real_ competition, for _some_ reason... but Yukina. Yukina was perfect. Hours had been seethed over Yukina's perfect, docile domestication- how wonderful a wife she would be! Oh, and Kurama _deserved_ a wonderful wife. But did he, Botan had cried more than once, _notice her?_ So Genkai's sudden, perfect prettiness had jarred her greatly, though Yukina's engagement to dear Kuwabara had lessened that jarring. _Still_, she thought, upset, _What else can I do to make him see me, now that she's so... so..._

_Oh, I hate this!_

An inner turmoil. But Botan's face showed no sign of it, ever, or now, as she blithely comforted Yukina. A cough; "Botan, come here." Botan cringed at Genkai's words, but obeyed regardless. Oh, her voice was so soft and pretty! Just like Yukina's, save more stern and cold- but wouldn't Kurama seek to be paired with someone as strong as Genkai, if not someone as perfect as Yukina? Wouldn't he _ever_ look her way? Wasn't she pretty? Wasn't she fun and cute and happy? _Wasn't _she happy...?

She understood her role in Genkai's next statement; an order to take her to spirit world to consult with Koenma, or perhaps Enma... likely first to follow through the hoops of bureaucracy which governed spirit world like angry wardens at a wolf's den. She nodded silently, manifested the oar, and led the way from the bathroom, hiding her confusing resentment and admiration of Genkai expertly.

Once outside, she leveled the oar to herself and her passenger-to-be, and saw Kurama leaning against a tree in the yard, staring at the water of Genkai's reflection pool, where three little fishes swam comfortably. He looked up at the arrival, a mere passing confirmation of their identities, and Botan caught his eyes. A chance- and she smiled prettily. Perhaps normally, he would have smiled back, but she did not receive even a half-moon smirk from him, not the slightest expression warmer than a scowl.

On the way to the spirit world, she did not speak to Genkai; she did not look back at her. She only stared ahead, and let the tears pool and flow.

---

_Running, flitting, crying, raging, treetops, shrines, rocks, streams, animals, wind, fire, darkness, the moon- sister-brother-mother-father, lover-hater, bringer-taker, here and gone, there and wrong, someone hurting...! Hurts me...!_

---

Kurama watched the blue-haired and pink-haired girls settle to oar to the spirit world, only half-interested as he mulled over his next moves- how to find and catch the wild Hiei. To be truthful, he wanted nothing to do with this mission- it was too tampered and volatile, and made him very deeply afraid. For that he might get killed by a demon who felt as though his heart was being ripped apart and destroyed, he had a right. And Botan the rower smiled at him, the hint of coquett and lovely in it, but he could not bring himself to smile back. He felt somehow, suddenly, from the hurt look in her smiling eyes, that this had been in one way the worst and in another way the best thing he could have done. Destroy a fragile young girl's heart? Fine. So long as she didn't hold it against him later when she found out where _his_ heart lay. So as the girls took off from the ground, leaving behind a scatter of dust and leaves, he turned away, into the forest, and chose to disregard the animosity he felt brewing in the house- he knew it had nothing to do with him, and nothing to do with a real threat. He knew the first _real _fight of the night was about to begin here- as a thought he'd shared with Genkai would in no wasted time confirm.

A ribbon in his pocket; up into his hair to draw it all back, and he shed his long-sleeved over-shirt. Underneath, a plain t-shirt, blue with a white stripe. Simple summer attire- but an outfit he knew he would not miss were it ripped to shreds by a sword, or bare hands. Or by the sheer force of another's pain _itself_.

---

After she had found the towels and a salve for Yukina, she had felt superfluous. All commotion moved around her, ignored her unless she may have stuck her foot or nose in it, and she did not 'feel' like intruding, when for all intents and purposes, it looked as though Botan and Kuwabara had the crisis covered. She had gone to wait in the kitchen, also unsure of whether or not to go back to the tea room. Part of her wanted to; it was the part that longed for Yuusuke's presence. Yuusuke was still in there- with... Kurama and Genkai. More concernedly, Genkai. Frowning, she pondered on Genkai's strange transformation at first; how strange for her to be so young- younger than herself, actually- for seemingly no reason; after all, the only times she had been so transformed was while fighting, and though Keiko was not sure of _all_ of the details, she was almost positive it was _impossible_ for Genkai to transform any longer. _Impossible._

She suddenly called for him- waited- and there was no answer. A new agitation with the frustrating boy went through her, made her clench her teeth in anger. What was his problem, anyway? Did he care or didn't he! For the past couple of months it had been impossible to tell. Since the tournament, nothing had been the same; and since seeing him in his perfection and glory at fight, she had tried a new angle to assert herself in his life. But he had disapproved, and had berated her. Jerk! Nothing had ever held his attention- yelling and hitting _him_ hadn't worked... But no matter... not really... right?

She leaned against the counter and rubbed her new skinned elbow. She had gotten it while picking a fight with a neighboring school, one which Yuusuke's gang had frequently had to tussle back out of their territory. She had thought, _Maybe I can really be a part of him and his life like this._

Being a part of his life had been exceptionally difficult over that summer; all of his time had been spent at the temple with Genkai, learning and excluding her. She had tried valiantly to drag him on various excursions, but to no avail- he remained adamant in his path to drive her absolutely batty. To his credit, he didn't realize it- at least, this is what Keiko believed- and she gave him as much patience as she could afford, but... A strange feeling nagged at her.

She called again, a whine edging on her voice; and she was not answered.

Keiko leaned against the counter, frustrated and not about to back down. But maybe... maybe the strange feeling was resentment.

---

_Genkai..._ His thoughts raced on as he moved from the broken tea room, his hand still hot from touching her shoulder. She'd been... very soft. Through the cloth, through the cool ice of her voice, and the toughness of her reputation... through these things, she had been very _soft_. So his hand still tingled with the surprise of this feeling, and his mind had not been able to shake her.

A new mystery. A new puzzle piece in a jigsaw which only grew, and never ended- he followed the sound of tears to the bathroom, gave a short glance to ascertain everything was 'all right', and continued on to the back of the house, catawampus from the tea room. Leaning against a tree, he shoved his hands into his pocket- a flash memory of Genkai destroying the boulder, saying, with her pretty face and eyes, "There was a time when that blast would have went for miles." A sad voice, and he wondered, _Did she really _not_ mind growing old as much as she said she did?_

Puu, silent and hardly noticeable, suddenly let out a low hum, to assert his presence, and from there remained about as contemplative and thoughtful as the soul he reflected.

It seemed silly, but he looked at the moon and the moon looked at him and suddenly it didn't really seem so. He sighed and began whistling absent-mindedly; his summer had been slow but had progressed quickly, and he did not look forward to the inevitable turf wars with the T high school, which Keiko had apparently half-instigated herself. Scowled- why was she acting out so much? She had begun starting fights, and acting 'tough', on and off, some time after the dark tournament, and it had been supremely bizarre. Half the time she was normal goody-goody Keiko, and the other half of the time, she... she was just... aggravating.

He had grown used to her clinging until it reached this new level; he had grown used to the whining, and nagging, and the lectures and even the occasion crying or slapping- but this fake want-to-be Keiko was supremely disgusting, in ways which went on and on in counting. It was sick. So Yuusuke did not know what to do with himself when he realized he wanted nothing to do with her until she went back to being herself, and when the want to just hang out and train with Genkai- _without_ Keiko- became extreme.

He also was not sure of what to do with himself now that Genkai was... _hot_... and still amazingly cool. _Somehow_, he mused, a half-smile on his lips, _I don't think it word work to call her 'Grandma' anymore._

And he was about to go back inside when he saw the swing and _whoosh_ of Botan's oar rocket from the other side of the house to the moon's face and then out of the stratospheres entirely. Botan had had a passenger, and that passenger had had pink hair, and probably the most wide, beautiful brown eyes...

"So you're going to the spirit world, hunh, Genkai?" he whistled, and turned back into the temple to get a snack while she wasn't around to be looking. (With... those brown, brown, _brown_ eyes...)

---

_I... I can't feel anything... I can't see... I can't hear... I can't think... I can't... hurt... Can't..._

_...Hurt..._

---

When he walked in, her mood had been fired up by her own thoughts, and she immediately narrowed her eyes and glared at him with the full force of a confused young girl, who did not know why she was angry, and did not know what to do about it. Yuusuke frowned, moved into the kitchen at a slower gait, and asked her why she looked so upset.

"Well, I _called_ you maybe three times and you didn't answer me," she growled, her arms crossed. The sight of him... oh, he looked different- older, more capable- what would she do now that he seemed perfectly capable of taking care of himself? If only _he_ would ever turn around and take care of _her_, once in a while, rather than ignoring her unless her life was in danger?

"I was outside, didn't hear you," he replied absentmindedly, brushing past her to the refrigerator. The girl pushed angrily away from the counter in Genkai's thoroughly modern kitchen, her light brown hair swinging in tufts of metaphor. "Is that it!" she cried, her fists shaking.

Yuusuke turned back to look at her in perplexion; "What is _wrong_ with you, Keiko?"

She bit her lip in frustration, turned to huff in the opposite direction because she did not _know._ "N-No 'I'm sorry', or anything? No apology? Just a careless 'I didn't hear you'?"

Yuusuke had pulled out a jar of jam- he'd procured bread, and was looking for peanut-butter- and he turned again to look at the girl who faced away from him angrily. "Well I _didn't_," he proclaimed in confusion. Keiko shifted and leaned against the counter unhappily, brushing her elbow against a stray sliver.

"Ouch!" she cried out, grasping the offended elbow in pain, where the reddening of a skin burned a little hotly. Yuusuke put down his butter knife and walked to his childhood friend, whose life he had saved more times than he knew, and examined the elbow critically. "You should stop picking fights with those T high school girls; they're a lot tougher than you."

Keiko ripped her elbow from his grasp, almost snarled in her agitation and stepped away, "Who asked you!" The young man's eyes widened in surprise and he balked, "_What?_"

"Just leave me alone," she muttered, rubbing the sore spot tenderly, "You don't care."

"Of course I care!" Yuusuke shouted, his temper flaring in a familiar way, "What's that shit you're trying to pull, anyway? I tell you to stop fighting because I care, don't I? That's not who you are!"

"So?" she countered, eyes going shiny with wetness, "How can you tell me who I am when you're never with me? You only pay attention to me when I'm in trouble anyway!"

Yuusuke's eyebrows shot up, and his tone changed, "Is that... is that why you've been getting into fights? to get my attention?" The girl slowed, her eyes wide with a strange realization, but she shook her head adamantly, and perhaps in that, damned herself.

"No, no," she glared at him, trying to win the argument, "I just wanted..." _-for you to take care of me._ "I..." -_without having to use an excuse like 'because you were in danger' or 'demons'..._ "I can't stand that you're always here, always training with Genkai- I, I wanted to get stronger so I could be with you."

His eyes darkened, as the aggravation of her will swept over him, "Since when are you-- That's _still_ trying to distract my attention to you."

"No," she whimpered, nearly crying, "Just..."

"Just what? Just quit while you're ahead- clearly this isn't going anywhere." He returned to his sandwich, Puu nervously worrying his little flippers together in distraught distraction. Swiftly, Yuusuke finished his sandwich, and bit into it hotly. "You know, I grew up with a real sweet girl; she could be really annoying sometimes, but at least she was always honest with herself."

She could only stare with crying eyes at the boy she had been in love with for years, as he berated and destroyed her, and as the will to fight back was crushed away. "I'm not psychic- you have to let me _know_ what you want out of me."

Perhaps she could have salvaged everything then- maybe by nodding and wiping the tears from her eyes, but her hurt feelings and confusion clouded her senses, and left her without much reason. Perhaps if she hadn't blurted out the first thing that had been bothering her for the past few months, and perhaps if it hadn't involved the underlying accusation that it held...

"You want me to stop training with Genkai?" he stared at her incredulously, and her cheeks flushed angrily. "Well I can't and I won't," he finished, tearing into the last of his sandwich. He felt like waving his hand in an obvious way and calling out sarcastically, 'Hel-lo, _spirit detective_- duh.'

It was the second broken heart of the night. She stared at him for a long moment, felt the anguish and the rage build together, and let it out in a wrathful, searing lash, "So she's more important, is she? So you'd rather spend all of your time here with her and not have anything to do with me? You probably 'didn't hear me' because you were with _her_! Is that it!"

And Yuusuke's anger had reached its boiling point as well; "You don't know what you're talking about! This isn't what you're mad about at all! Why can't you just say what you're really thinking!"

A duel- a draw- the fire, the guns- and the dust clearing at their feet. _Because I don't know what I'm really thinking,_ she thought miserably. "Why don't you just answer me?" she said acidly, crossing her arms, if only to hold in the beating of her palpitating heart.

"Is that what you want to hear?" he demanded, face red with anger and a peculiar sort of shame, thinking of the softness of Genkai's shoulder under the shirt as he had passed her, of the cuteness of her face, and of the beauty of her presence and _self_. "Forget it!" he seethed at her, seeing only the simplicity and fakeness of a foolish little girl, and seeing everything he despised in the image she'd clung to.

She bit her lip, frustrated and losing her battle- what would she do now? Her anger and agitation with Yuusuke was greater now than it had ever been in all her lifetime- some unsaid reason, some strange motive in her, or perhaps some other frightening grounds on which she stood- a basis which startled her and left her lost for words- that is, words which made sense to her. There _were_ now words for this pain he gave her, this invidious, _jealous_ ache for him, from him- with or without him. Loving of a high, unreachable order. Unattainable; a love destined to be destroyed by the lover herself- her self which would never know. Poetic and self-destructive- Keiko closed her eyes, and felt the tears spill like burning, "So you won't? You ask me to tell you what I want- but you refuse?"

"Why do you say it like that?" Yuusuke growled, setting his jaw determinedly- toward whatever end he at once knew and did not know- to say with the utmost calmness, "This is my life. It's what I do. You can't expect me to give it up for a girl."

"Then I'll stay out of your way," the girl replied coldly, her spine straight and shoulders squared in what would have been considered a pose of self-sufficient strength, "I don't need to be a part of your dumb life anyway."

_Why won't you stand behind me and back me up, like you used to?_ asked the boy.

_Why won't you stay with me and take care of me anymore? _asked the girl.

And they meant 'Goodbye'.


	2. Second Catalyst

**(KAI) **Ah, I should just apologize now. Maybe you will notice a quality/style change somewhere in the middle of this (maybe you won't), and for that, I am sorry. I re-picked this thing up after a hiatus and that's just the way it is. Chapter three (final) will be longer in coming, as I have to write the entirety of it (and these chapters do run me around thirty (30!) kilobytes each. Anyway- thanks, reviewers! yeah. Also, alert me of typos. I dislike them.  
...Please don't mind me.

---

**SECOND CATALYST**

---

To tell the truth his mind had been on Hiei long before the meeting gave him reason to ponder the other demon; in point of fact, it was Hiei who had given him reason to show to this meeting at all. Kurama ran through the forest at a breakneck pace, showing little heed for himself while darting around, over, and through the branches of trees; a rip in the tee shirt, a scratch on his cheek, and the thoughts still chasing circles through his brain as wildly and as dangerously as he himself ran through the forest.

Yes; Hiei. Nights over your absence, worrying, and copious amounts of coffee drunk for the stress of it, but the lethargy was gone, and the pull of a caffeine crash detonated and vanished, and only the pure, terrible crystal of alertness to the slightest nuance of presence which was Hiei. Kurama paused at the thick of a tall branch, jutting over a fallen log and dune of grass; this night had been the first night on which he'd had such freedom of movement. A deep breath of the night air; sigh, and wondering. A trail of dark aura clung to the air and the earth; malevolence and cold ire.

The demon felt a stray hair brush the back of his neck and shivered; this was where his insomnia lay- in the shivers and shakes and terrible aching. "Hiei," he whispered, feeling the word flow on the currents of space, and testify to his concern and affection; here the worry, here the pain. "How close are you to destruction?"

A musing, and a prophecy, ominous. He had felt when Hiei had first disappeared for that month after the dark tournament, a definite sense of loss, and the day the small demon had suddenly reappeared, Kurama had felt such a relief as never compelled before. The second time he disappeared, and with a strange anger covering for some wistful longing in his reddish eyes, Hiei remained disappeared for much longer, setting into Kurama those strong, reaching apprehensions, and uneases, for the boy-demon's safety.

Darting back into a searching mode, Kurama allowed himself a slight 'scoff' at the idea of Hiei being a boy. It was a right and a wrong, and for some reason dangerously appropriate. But should a boy have to deal with the sorts of hardships Hiei had endured? Leaping over logs and then rolling into an embankment to cover more ground, Kurama skittered out of his first grid pattern, as following the trail of rage and anguish Hiei unwittingly left behind. It was a trail few on earth, or beyond, could ever have hoped to detect, let alone follow. Should a person have had to endure the pain of a false _Jagan_ eye, or the constant isolation from his only family, for fear of their rejection of you? But to love that person so much, and to always be watching over them, and to never be appreciated?

Kurama slowly rationalized Hiei's plight in steps and even bounds and he himself stepped, and bounded, through the forest, closing in on the out of control fire demon.

---

He stood in the kitchen for some moments before slowly turning around; slowly letting out a strange, strangled breath. He crossed the kitchen quietly, mechanically replaced the peanut butter and jelly to their homes and felt the sandwich they'd went in to flop oddly in his stomach- a cold, icy hand in his abdomen, making him feel sick. He'd never fought with Keiko like that before, and he knew it had finalized a change that came with that fact. Puu fluttered off of his head, presumably to follow Keiko, and he leant his fists against the counter weakly, a strange and powerful want to cry building behind his eyes and burning his nose.

A part of him left with the girl, and left with Puu, and he clutched his heart suddenly, inexplicably, at the loss- at the empty aching hole. A feeling he'd only had once or twice in his lifetime- nothing less painful than the desolate pain of a death; like the moment Kuwabara was stabbed in the stadium, the moment Keiko was threatened... Keiko... It was like a name from a century and a day ago, something lost to him forever. Yuusuke gasped, and wished, suddenly- desperately, that Genkai was there. Stable, dependable, sane and serious Genkai, who could unravel puzzles such as this, set right wrongs such as this, or at least _explain_ them... and fix any broken..

_Heart_, Yuusuke thought dizzily, his eyes widening in alarm.

---

Botan settled down to the earth some feet away form the main offices of the spirit world, and waited for Genkai to remove herself from the oar. She was not _angry_ with the woman-turned-girl, but at that moment, a wretched sort of hatred was burning for the pink-haired passenger. Botan sniffed at the concerned but cold expression Genkai gave her, and brightly commented on how the cold air on the trip over did terrible things to her sinuses.

Genkai nodded and walked away, and Botan knew that she had not been fooled.

---

She did not wonder what was bothering her pilot to the spirit world- she had already surmised that Botan's dismal countenance was resulted from the attractive demon Kurama, who, Genkai recalled from the scene before, had _not_ smiled back at the easily hurt girl; she had filed this away, and had not put it past Botan to be angry with her for some reason also- possibly from the jealousy of competition. Genkai's mind had not become any less sharp, it appeared. So, for not wondering after Botan, she was left to her own self for pondering; for dissection and understanding. No matter how hard she looked, though, at herself, she could not find the answers as easily as when she looked at others- intuition found on the doorstep of every other soul could not be discovered at any entrance to herself.

Her only theory, was that someone _else_ had done this to her, and not she to herself had it been done. But it was a theory that did not take her far enough toward the truth- so, it was off the spirit world- the place where such theories could be proved or disproved, with a little patience, and a lot of influence.

Genkai had influence, and she had patience- and she had arrived.

Botan almost did not meet her eyes as she slipped off of the oar, and moved her pack across her shoulder (in case that she might be spending more than the agreeable amount of time there, surfing through the paperwork and legal circus hoops she might have to go through to get her answers). Genkai gave her a long, hard look, and saw the dried tears on the young girl's face- it was a sad thing to see indeed. But Botan sniffed suddenly and the broken heart that had shown on her face disappeared under the surface and was replaced prettily by a bright and shiny Botan, saying, "Oh, my, these trips to spirit world- the cold air does just _terrible_ things to my sinuses!"

She could only nod, and walk away, toward the great double doors of the main offices, and say as she went, "I will send a message to you when I need to be returned," she slowly turned around to look the girl in the face, to show her a bit of compassion, "if it is all right with you."

Botan, hovering above the ground ever-so-slightly on her vehicle, the oar, paused and stared for a moment, and then her face broke into a small, honest smile, as the kind-and-thoughtfulness of this small statement wormed its way past her greyed, angry heart, and she replied, "Yes."

---

It was closer to the edge of another city that Hiei's trace became strong again, after a good twenty minutes of blind hunter-tracking; and perhaps another twenty minutes to the explosive fight that would prove a few of Kurama's fervent theories, and disprove others. At about that time- maybe, midnight-forty, and just beyond Yuusuke grasping at his heart in the kitchen and Genkai feeling her own heart warm to another hurt soul entirely- Kurama paused at the edge of a lake- saw a slide of mud where two feet may have slipped at, or away, from the water, and saw in his mind, Hiei- falling and crawling and lost.

Lost- there was a keyword. Kurama knelt at the lake's edge, let his aura filter out and around, and let his senses read the place; yes, Hiei had been here. He was close. Was there time, yet? What damage could he have already accomplished in the wake of his loss?

Kurama stood up, rubbed a spot of dirt off his cheek, and suddenly catapulted upward, into a tree, which led to another tree, which led to another tree, which led to another tree- through the branches he leapt, and then 'saulted to the ground, ran a fox-trail through the bushes and low shrubbery, where Hiei's 'scent' went strong- there were sword slashes here, in the woods. _He uses his sword to attack,_ Kurama reasoned,_ and to defend himself. He is defending against-_

---

_Who are these people?_ a pair of burning red eyes peered from darkness, hating, and hurting, and capable of killing for the need to distract from the pain. Horrible, horrible pain, all because of that fool _ningen_-

---

_-A... human?_ Kurama's flash of insight left him more confused than enlightened, and he stopped again, to rest, and regroup, and re-think his friend. Leaning against a tree, he pressed his hand against his temple and rested his tired eyes. _His violence was triggered by the announcement of Kuwabara's engagement- to _Yukina_, his only family. She's the only person on earth he'd ever actually _cared _for._ This thought made Kurama a little sad- that he could say with surety that Hiei's only concern on earth was _Yukina's _welfare, was disheartening to his feelings for the young man. Still, he did not allow himself to tumble down a road of wistful thinking and pity for himself, and stayed to the path of thought which summarized all of the thinking which had preceded it.

_Clearly it is not a marriage he approves of; although his feelings toward Kuwabara are not _technically_ hatred... they are not of a warm friendliness._ Then again, Kurama knew, Hiei did not exactly show feelings of warm friendliness toward _anyone_, not even the sister he coveted so dearly._ Coveted._ That was another keyword. _Lost_ and _Coveted._ Had Hiei lost something he coveted?

Kurama's eyes widened in surprise at the simplicity of the answer, at the obvious source of the anger and pain in the little demon's red eyes...

This was not only about Yukina, or Kuwabara; it was about _Hiei_ himself. Kurama abruptly leapt across the little lake, a breakneck speed toward the only person, aside from a thief named Kuronoe, and a woman he called 'Mother', _he_ had ever cared about.

---

Had it been worth it? She rubbed her skinned knees between thumbs with sore spots, and winced with weeping eyes when the little spots cried out in pain. She could remember one of the knees' skinning, but not the other; it had been in an alley near the larger arcade, as she had shoved past a few tough-looking girls smoking cigarettes. They were T high school girls; of the school which Yuusuke and Kuwabara's gangs had been having troubles with since their frequent disappearances. Keiko frowned as the memory hit her harder, shaking the new cavity, the _emptiness_, in her chest.

Coming from the arcade- looking fruitlessly for Yuusuke- she had shoved past the girls without thinking of the consequences. Oh, the consequences if her shoving _intimidated_ them into thinking the high school she was from was one of some rep, but not the consequences of them chasing after her down so many alleys her head spun.

Although she had yelled out so many deceiving things like, "You can't catch me!" and "If you can't catch me, you'll never beat Yuusuke Urameshi!" she had still had to survive the encounter- and it had been hard, not to mention scary. And although the encounters had been relatively infrequent, she had somehow believed they would _help_ somehow.

The tears rolled down her cheeks as she stared out the window of the room she's run to; an old guest room not even particularly used for storage. Help how? She pretended to think that she was somehow becoming part of his world again; but then conceded to herself that the only way she really knew how to get his attention as simply to _get_ it- by being in harm's way. But harm... harm came to her even without her running to it like she had been.

Keiko let out a sob- it was the monsters! The demons! She couldn't stand it anymore! It was all too dangerous and frightening- a flashback to the tournament: she had sat side by side with demons, and had even made acquaintance with an ogre! Another sob ripped its way out of her broken chest; the memories that had whisked her away from reality had plagued her since those moments- all of them of a young Keiko and a young Yuusuke, playing and innocent, without monsters invading their time together!

They were... they had been... safe...

She felt the anguish well up again, like a tsunami from the hole in her heart, that ripped out of her throat in weeping waves; Keiko felt somehow removed from Yuusuke, somehow removed from everything. Like a marionette cut from binding strings, she slumped forward, holding her arms around herself in the futile expression of security which had once helped so much, but now seemed hollow, and unreal.

"There are p-places from- from which we c-can never return," she choked, tears clouding her vision, "The p-places of-of the p-past, where child-childhood, dream-ming, and loving are k-kept secret, and, and, and safe, as th-they are lost."

She quoted the line from her studies verbatim, as of an American writer from the eighteen-hundreds, and with every syllable, a little part of herself died away. Keiko looked at herself in a mirror inside, and could see that in all her years of tireless education, diligent and determined erudition, she had learned nothing, except what her heart told her too late.

---

His large hands wound the bandages carefully around for the last time, until the delicate little hand he held was comfortably swathed and perfected. "There we go!" he sing-sang, holding on longer than was necessary, as she smiled at him warmly. She could have easily healed the meager wound on her own, but for some reason, allowed the _ningen_ to lavish attentions on her. Yukina found it sweet and enjoyable to be so adored, so needed and loved. Though in her lifetime she had never contemplated marriage, and found the institution rather confusing, she looked forward to her joining with the man who smiled back down at her. He was a good man.

A good man who could barely contain himself, yes, but such a strong, handsome man, with such a good heart; a good man. These were the things that drew her to him, because for Yukina, trusting people had always been the difficulty. Strangers used and abused, and left her cold, so that there was more comfort to be found in ice than in even the consuming search for her brother, now lost and estranged. Guilt ate at her even as marveled the delight that was Kazuma's warm, reassuring touch; and his smile did not abate her worry. "Do you think my brother will be all right?"

Because for so long Yukina has ached to be his sister, so that she had even planned on revealing herself to him over those warm teas, even now staining the floor of Genkai's tea room. Her eyelashes fluttered over eyes still glassed from tears, and Kazuma's heart wrenched- still, he chose to be honest rather than placating. "I don't know. Maybe Kurama will be able to handle it..." Because Kazuma knew Kurama was elected to requisition the little forbidden child, as Kurama's presence had long ago faded, "And maybe not, Hiei's a real puzzle."

Yukina nodded, grateful, and leaned against his chest; the heartbeat. Was this where she had known love? When Kazuma's exuberance had led to the briefest of embraces? Long ago, she believed the only heart she could be connected to was Hiei's; who else but the person who was as a part of her? But this heartbeat... everything was in this heart. Kazuma swallowed a hard lump in his throat, and heard faint shouting in the nether part of Genkai's greatness of a home. He sensed bad things under the roof; things like how mirrors look broken and how tears look running. He sensed these things, and held Yukina gently, because she needed that; she needed to feel safe, and warm, and loved... he grimaced and wondered if maybe it was what Hiei needed, too.

---

She was sobbing on the floor in a spare bedroom when Yukina slid open the door and shuffled over, and had forgotten the outside world until the feminine ice apparition gingerly knelt nearby. Her wet brown eyes met soft teal eyes, and Keiko sobbed the harder for Yukina's gentle, understanding expression. "How do you do it?" she cried softly, huddled over her knees defensively, as though trying to hide, "How are so perfect?"

Yukina's eyes widened in alarm, "I'm... I'm not perfect!"

The weeping brunette only shook her head in response and clutched her sleeves miserably. "But you are... you're even getting m-married..."

Yukina smiled and scooted nearer, her task of consoling Keiko on one level simple and on another impossible; Kazuma had been right when he'd said something terrible had occurred, and that they were needed. She simply hadn't expected anything quite like this. "I'm not perfect because Kazuma and I were... engaged." She blushed, thinking of that beautiful afternoon, when he'd tracked her down, blustering and embarrassed in the freezing lands, and asked her to come with him. It had been the first of several 'yes's'. "Tell me why you're crying, Keiko," she touched a hand to the girl's scuffed knee, and it began to heal quietly before Keiko's reddened eyes; she sniffed, and took a deep breath.

---

"Hey, man," he said, striding into the kitchen, where Yuusuke's he could feel Yuusuke's aura slowly writhing and bleeding around him, as though darkened and lost, and upset; he stopped midway, watching the other detective's shoulders tense and un-tensed as though unsure of what they were supposed to do.

"Hey," came his response, slow and deafened by itself- too loud, too soft, somewhere between broken and breaking. Yuusuke turned and crossed his arms, and tried to look as though he were not entirely disposed to crying at that very moment. Kuwabara crossed his arms also, uncomfortable.

"What happened?" Kuwabara felt the kitchen throw the oppressive energy back and forth against the walls, felt it ooze and seethe a hunt for a place to rest, but it was so black, so dark, and so misplaced, that it would eventually exorcise itself from the room as easily as it had exorcised itself from between the two teens who had carried it. Yuusuke was shrugging, not meeting Kuwabara's eyes.

"I dunno, I think Keiko and I... might've..." and as strong as he might have fancied himself, as terribly heroic, or masculine, Yuusuke suddenly bit his lip, because as he spoke, more of his heart was pulling and tearing and re-aligning itself right under his nose. "I know," he began again, "she and I weren't official or anything, but, I think we kind of broke up."

Kuwabara's jaw dropped, and Yuusuke hung his head.

---

"You don't even try- I mean, I bet you don't even have to," she was leaning against the wall, considerably calmed, and starting to laugh, "you're just so cute! Everyone loves you!"

Yukina smiled awkwardly, sitting near Keiko, but not next to her, and said slowly, "I honestly don't know what you mean... try what?"

Keiko giggled, truly bemused and feeling better than she had; it was an obnoxious thing, really; here you were having this excellent emotional breakdown, and here comes along miss shining pretty perfect- who, mind you, has no concept of the meaning 'perfect', and therefore couldn't be 'imperfect' if her life depended on it- and bam! there goes your pity party. The brown-eyed girl smiled wistfully, "It doesn't matter, Yukina. I just wish... well, I don't know."

Yukina nodded, marginally aware of what the other girl meant, now that she had been divulged to every agonizing moment occurring between her and Yuusuke just after Hiei had gone. "I really thought Yuusuke and I would be forever," Keiko's head came to rest against the wall with a soft thud, "I just can't believe all that's happened. And I guess what I meant... is that I _did_ try. I tried to make him love me, but..."

Yukina's face was sober, and she said quietly, one hand on Keiko's knee, now only comforting, rather than healing, "But he was already in love with you."

"Yes," Keiko whispered, smiling, tears slipping over her cheeks in smooth rivulets, collecting at her chin and hanging there before crashing in little drops onto her hands, "Yes, he was."

---

"I don't know what to do now..." Yuusuke looked at Kuwabara with a sort of half-smile, though it pained him, and Kazuma frowned, agitated suddenly that their friendship was shallow enough that Yuusuke had to hide what he was really feeling. A grimace to king all other grimaces crossed the tall red-head's face- he knew he was a jerk. He knew he was about as far from cool as the equator. But was this really all he and Yuusuke would ever have? The superficial friendship all blokes share? The passing farce that held them back from being men about themselves? Suddenly, Kuwabara was headily embarrassed about his past; headily aware of what a prick his culture made him.

"You really think it's over? No going back?" Kazuma stepped a bit closer, waving his hand in what may have been an insane gesture, but was actually a absent-minded brush-off to a stray wisp of miasmic, dark energy trailing in the air. Yuusuke nodded, leaning back on the counter as he rolled his head back and stared at the ceiling. "Then take a deep breath and forget about it."

Yuusuke's attention snapped back down to Kuwabara, who had a wide, goofy grin on his long face; and Yuusuke laughed- a chuckle which rolled up from deep down and broke through the heartache like a bull. Kuwabara walked forward a bit and gave Yuusuke a hug, bold and unrestrained, and when Yuusuke laughed all the harder for it, he left his arm around his friend's shoulder's, because there were tears tracking down Yuusuke's cheeks, and those tears needed a shoulder to be cried on.

---

_I don't want to be alone_. Hiei saw them laughing together in a small encampment, where two tents and an SUV were comfortably strewn about, and where a warm fire lit their happy faces. _I don't want to be the only one._

His mind was screaming out at him, and he tried to ignore it- whatever he was feeling, whatever part inside him had snapped despite his careful grooming, he did not want to know. There was only the blinding pain roiling in his chest- squeezing his heart and making ragged shreds of his breath. The site was touching, and the sight of it made Hiei's blood go cold. The mud on his knees was forgot; the scratches on his arms where trees had raked him in passing through his clothes, as he'd run blind through the forest, cold, unfeeling, and unthinking. _Hurting_. _I hurt_.

But he did not pay attention to the crying in his heart, because Hiei the fire demon did not _have_ a heart, he reminded himself, reminded himself fiercely, and could only close his eyes in agony as pictures of Yukina and Kuwabara and Kurama flashed in indiscernible patterns across his tortured mind. Just how many years had he been keeping watch out for his treasured sister? Just how long did it take for the fool _ningen_ to steal her away? And what good was Kurama? _What good?_ His mind raged, and his body began to act out that rage with the barest of permissions from his brain; perhaps, like two dancers. He stepped into the clearing with a fire in his hands, with his sword drawn and dripping with the agony he held it with. "Hey," he growled as his body took over, as it made him blissfully unaware of the shattered images and words in his mind, as it shut him off from himself as easily as a door closing. "Hey," he grinned, the tremendous pressure of his soul lifting from his conscience, "Why wasn't I invited to the party?"

---

Kurama hissed in pain as a single, tremendous wave of agony flooded the forest's senses; it tore through, black and raging, and bent the trees and grass, whipped up the dirt where it was dry and churned it where the ground was wet. Leaves flew at Kurama's face from the direction he ran toward, and each one became a shredded thing as he ripped through them and the air that wafted them angrily. What burn in his side? What bleeding cut on his forehead? All sensation had left him long ago, as the consuming desire to save Hiei from himself had pervaded every cell of the red-head's being. So the screams could have made the stitch in his side unravel, and the sweet, copper smell that began to permeate the wood could have made Kurama's blood freeze, but they and it did not, and he burst through the clearing with such a fear that the plants and flowers all around began to wither.

Kurama's stomach lurched; laughing over a young woman screeching, Hiei was raising his sword high; nearby, a man, no older than twenty-five, was dragging hismelf across the ground, a look of the sheerest pain upon his rugged features, while the trail of his own blood steadily followed him. A teenaged girl was screaming up against the hood of a sport utility vehicle, along with a younger man, who was holding onto her waist, not screaming, not looking, not believing he would survive the night.

"_Hiei!" _he bellowed, haltng the sword inches from the woman's neck, and lunged toward the demon, all things slowing and bringing grey.

---

Asuka Tenjou, the young woman who nearly died that night, managed to scramble away somehow, with her heart pounding in her chest like a belfry bat and her hands shaking like they were. Somehow, she helped Jin, the strong-built man with a punctured lung, into his vehicle; somehow she got her daughter Nene and her best friend, Keiji- paralyzed with fear- into the car, as well. And most miraculously, she got the key into the ignition and managed to drive away.

Eventually, Jin did heal, though by all rights he should not have, and Nene regained her voice, which had gone raw and had been lost for nearly a month after the event. And although Keiji now refuses to go camping anywhere more rugged than in his backyard now, he and Nene now laugh about the night they were almost killed.

Asuka remembers the night vividly in her nightmares, occasionally, and for that reason, does not believe the pyschiatrist she sees once in a while when he tells her she did not see an inhuman fire burning in the killer's eyes. She does not believe that the child, wielding a sword down on her friend and family, could possibly have been human.

---

"Hiei!" he repeated, grabbing the smaller demon's arm before the shock of seeing Kurama wore off completely; still, before the fox-demon could disarm the object of his search and rescue, Hiei jerked his arm from Kurama's long, pale fingers, and growled indignantly.

"Get _back_," he hissed, fingers tightening on the hilt as he leveled it toward Kurama's heart. Those fingers shook with a strange restraint, and the fox stepped back slowly, his arms assuming defense while his eyes swept over Hiei once, and then twice, then to settle on the other demon's eyes. Narrow and bright red, they glowed at him in the darklight, devoid of sense and reason. "Stay away from me."

Kurama's mind rushed like a broken river over all the things he could say, all of the statements, and predicted their outcomes one mile at a minute until Hiei bared his teeth and snapped, "What do you want?"

He grimaced, lowering his center of gravity as Hiei's dark aura swept in waves through the camp site. An engine started, tires sqealed in Kurama's peripheral and were no more. "I don't want anything," he said softly, looking through Hiei's eyes to seem nonthreatening, and moving closer. The leaves crackled wetly. "I want to help you."

"I don't need your help," Hiei retorted immediately, a familiar obstinacy flaring through his features, "I'd rather kill you."

---

_I'd rather be dead._

---

It was somewhere between a soft wind and the cut of a vegetable bound for stew, that Kurama twisted and jumped to avoid. It was a deep, cold growl that hit his ears, that scratched his soul. Hiei drove mercilessly, in a circle that bent and leapt the fox deamon across the campsite twice and around, like a dancer or leaf. Every slash cam roaring from the sword Hiei crossed- once, twice, three times, and he managed to shred several strands of long red hair. Cut a small, bleeding cut into an arm. But his frustration remained. Kurama dodged, but did not return. He escaped death, but did not run away. For that, he increased the intensity with which he attacked, hoping desperately to inflict something greater than a flesh wound. Something deeper. "Fight _back!_" he growled, throwing his body into a blow and spinning to kick at Kurama's back; he missed and Kurama rolled beneath him, shoving his hand upward.

The impact of Kurama's palm to the smaller demon's calf sent the child-faced into a spin upward, and Hiei landed on his feet only inches away from Kurama's concerned expression.

That pain? That ache between his ribs that did not belong? It was not. It wasn't there. And it certainly did not bloom like a flower of death all through Hiei's body upon sight of those green, green eyes. No.

He swung again, slicing through the air in an arc which would have put Kurama in two, through the middle, like a magician's trick. But before he was halved, Kurama was behind Hiei, like a lightning metaphor, and resting his hands on the thin shoulders. "Please stop this, Hiei."

He was frozen. And Kurama was puzzling at the soft, boned feeling beneath his fingertips- it was as though underneath those black clothes which suggested nothing about Hiei's normally strong body, there was a slightly less powerful body, slightly weakened. And Hiei could not move, could not shake the pure terror which came to him like a frailty of spirit, as though he had somehow failed. Somehow been destroyed. Kurama's fingers rested so lightly, so gently. It was not a touch the shorter was used to, nor had ever dwelt upon as worth being used to.

Such contempt he'd held for the humans. For the touching weak. And yet Kurama's fingers unclenched held him place like a leash, leather and comforting. "Don't tell me what to do," Hiei quavered, hating every fiber of himself as he turned his sword upward, downward, around, and aimed for Kurama's heart.

---

There was a couple walking past the river when Botan appeared on the bench outside Giseku Park. She watched them from the cool wood, balancing the oar on her knees absent-mindedly, though she had no reason to do so. Maybe she was taking her mind off things. Maybe she wasn't. A melody hummed to her, passing on her lips like a kiss. But she was not so much melancholy as she was tired, and her eyelids drooped slightly with the weight of her day.

_What are you going to do now?_ she asked herself wanly, smiling over the sparkles of moonlight on water she could glimpse over the rise. Somehow, going back to Genkai's seemed incorrect. as did going to her own home. There was only waiting for Genkai to call her, to be a taxi in the night. _But it's not so bad_, she reasoned. Not trying to lie to herself, and failing.

Loneliness washed over her gently, and she relished its familiarity, thinking briefly of Kurama, and then to the one who had held her heart before the red-haired demon. Smiling, she sighed, reaching up and unbinding the ponytail. Tension eased from her instantly, and for effect, a breeze brushed the strands of blue back, away, and comiserated with her quietly. "I loved you so much," she told the ghosts of her past wryly.

"Did you?" he responded teasingly, pausing his jogging shoes to smile down at the pretty girl in Giseku Park.

Botan looked up abruptly, her defenses zipping into overdrive having not recognized the voice, "What?"

He laughed. "Sorry, I couldn't help myself."

Looked him over, scanned his aura. Read his soul. There wasn't a trace in him- not of malevolence, magic, or power. Not of darkness or abnormality. He was perfectly normal, and not even psychotic. She balked at the analysis. Was her life so hectic now? That no one could be average? She laughed in return, and it was a relieved laugh.

"My name is Saru," he said informally, like a foreigner, and stuck out his right palm with a smile, "I've been living here for a while but I've never met you."

"Botan," she said softly, her chest empty and aired, as though the wind had carried the day away. All that was left, was the night jogger and her.

---

They met in the tea room. Yukina had the broom, Kuwabara had the dust pan. Together, they swept the floor, and turned the table right, and straightened the walls. When this was done, they sat together, and Yukina used the white tea set with the hydrangeas print for the first time. For them, the only sound was the hush of the liquid gently steaming into the little cups, though these, with the tiny blue hydrangeas, were larger than the last set. There was that, and the hush of Yukina's kimono, and the shift of Kuwabara's hands as they folded together in a short prayer for his friends.

"I think everything will turn out all right," Yukina said softly, going through the steps of the tea-pouring as though they were her lifeline to normalcy. When she was done, she carefully settled the pot down, so that it made no noise, and turned it sideways so she could not knock it over. Watching the display critically, Kuwabara rested a hand over hers, covering it like a trembling bird in a blanket.

"I think so, too," he smiled, lopsidedly, so that she blushed.

"I wish I could do more to help them," the ice appartiion murmured sadly, resting her forearms on the table as she had seen dear Kazuma do.

But dear Kazuma shook his head, "You can't heal everyone, Yukina, you shouldn't expect yourself to." And he congratulated himself on coming up with such a deep thought, though he knew he had probably picked it up somewhere and had no right to feel proud.

But Yukina smiled, and she leaned forward to kiss him, because she could, and because she liked the way his face turned red, and the way she felt afterward.

---

Koenma was busy. Somehow, she had known that when she arrived, there would be more to getting her answers than walking in, demanding them, and leaving. Yet... how exasperating to be waiting outside the huge, overly tall doors, watching ogres scurry back and forth,t heir ties askew, the sweat dripping on their brows. Absently, she considered rephrasings of her thoughts, conjunctions to her thoughts, and supportive evidence for her thoughts. It was the third time in that hour that she had done so.

With a sigh, she leaned against the same wall, counting the blue versus green ogres, and then the purple versus red. Although she had a relatively good sense of patience, it was currently being worn rather thin. _Perhaps it is my hormones_.

Frowning, she turned her attention to her hands. Small, and soft. _My body is so young,_ she turned the hands over, looked at the lines of the curved palms, _as though time has be rewound. But why?_ She felt the uncertaninty, the pain of being out of control of her situation; it was a sensation that, for the most part, had faded away in her youth, had been replaced by maturity and the grace of wisdom. _But I'm not changed on the inside. I'm the same,_ Genkai pressed her fingertips to her temples, flowed a calm chakra into her nerves.

But the stress did not go away. The worry did not abate, and she began to feel anxiety rest in her ribs. Annoyed, she crossed her arms and huffed. Meditation.

A memory of Toguro when he was young, and pleasant. A memory of daisy fields, or naps in the sun. Of hard training and growing, or caring and being betrayed. Death, rebirth. Images, and words. And the faces of those who had been touching her life. The demons, the girls, the boys, and the rest. Relaxation reached her; the muscles in her shoulders loosed, and she felt her sense of gravity returning.

_Childishness_, she allowed herself,_ I'm adjusting to this state of being slowly. I'll master it._

Yuusuke appeared in her mind, in the place within herself she retreated to. Like an apparition he was ghostly beside her, clapping her on the shoulder and congratulating her like children do. And he was smiling; from ear to ear, and in his eyes. Genkai opened her eyes, horrified, with a gasp and scramble to approach reality's surface. Yuusuke... in her hallowed room; where she was in meditation, and should be _alone_ with her images and words.

Yuusuke.


End file.
